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Grand Central Fun Rally - 24 September 2011

Ernie, Sean & IanThis year’s fun rally fell on Saturday 24 September, the first anniversary of SPS Flying Club (Special Pilots Services Flying Club), which CFI Ian Seddon explained is an organisation managed by SPS which tries to bring aviation enthusiasts together for social occasions in order to provide a platform for them to swap ideas and gain inspiration regarding all things aviation. They organise fly-in breakfasts once a month, and fly-aways every few months, as well as the annual Grand Central Fun Rally.

This rally is unique in that a number of student pilots from participate with their instructors, providing these new pilots with a set of safety skills, habits and attitudes that are not normally taught during traditional pilot training.

Stall holders from EAA, Wings ‘n Things, General Pilot’s Supplies set up their wares, which created a lot of interest from the participants between briefings, flights and scoring. Breakfast was sponsored by SPS from the coffee shop at Grand Central.

Reino & Reinhardt with IanIan opened the event with a talk about safety issues in flying, and reminded the participating pilots that during the rally they are issued with a logger, which picks up any pilot behaviour that is not within navigational regulations, and that these errors count against the teams in the scoring. For the first time, SPS set up a screen and projector, which SAPFA Rally organiser Frank Eckard linked up to his laptop, and was able to project all the routes and scores onto the screen. This provided the crowd with great entertainment, and they found it very uncanny that the logger could pick up exactly where they had flown, at what altitude, and what speed.

The rally, titled “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” took the teams through various transport-related turnpoints such as Kayalami Race Course, over the Gerotek Vehicle Testing Track, railway stations, and required a touch-and-go at Brits airfield. The weather cleared up after an initial foggy start, and the teams were all able to cross the Magaliesberg and complete the course.

Ian hands out 3rd prizeIan thanked Cathlin Fourie for putting the event together, ATC at Grand Central Jocelyn and Mashadi for bringing the pilots home safely, Mary de Klerk for her talk on flying rallies on the preceding Wednesday evening, and Frank and Cally Eckard for organising the rally. He also thanked Gary Reynolds from GC for waiving the landing fees for the event.

Zabula provided the first prize of a 2 night mid week break for 4 people at the lodge. The second prize was from General Pilot Supplies which were magnificent product hampers for each crew member worth R 500 each. Mugg & Bean at Greenstone donated the third prize of a lunch voucher worth R300. Our thanks got to the sponsors.